In early February of this year, I bid approximately $650 for the website, Jpegz.com, on auction at eBay. The bid did not meet the reserve, nor was I high bidder. I contacted the seller in March inquiring about the status of the website. The seller, Grey (or Lamont) Cooper of Cyberbulk Internet, informed me the site was still available for sale, and that it generated $1000.00 a month in profit. The asking price was $9000. I proceeded to ask the seller some questions and made an offer of $4000. We eventually agreed upon $4500, with $3000 paid through Escrow.com and $1500 paid through PayPal.com.
The transaction was then set up with the online escrow company, Escrow.com. After the funds were transferred to Escrow.com, the seller gave me control of the site and supposedly transferred ownership to me. Everything seemed to be legitimate so Escrow.com released the funds to the seller. Soon after releasing the funds, click-through traffic on the advertising on the website dropped to almost nothing.
It became painfully apparent the seller lied about traffic details of the website. I requested a refund from the seller on June 6. At this point, the seller seized control and ownership of the website that I had mistakenly assumed was under my control and ownership. Shocked by this action, I began investigating domain name transfer protocols and discovered that website owners have the ability to reacquire control and ownership of any website in their possession for a period of 60 days after the initial transfer.
As of this writing, October 04, nearly 4 months since surreptitiously reacquiring (and profiting from) ownership of the website, Cyberbulk Internet has paid back $0 of the $3300 stolen from me.
0 comments